Old Days
by Pyrasaur
Summary: It takes a while to find the right words. GodotxPhoenix, 3-5 spoilers


It took time. _Civil_ was an easy word to say and a difficult one to feel. It took endless-flowing coffee, and more confessions and more mugs flung in frustration.

But if anyone wouldn't give up, if anyone would dig nails in and stare harder, it was Mr. Back From The Depths Of Hell, the man who never stopped remembering. Knuckles pounded on the front door, at odd enough hours to make Phoenix startle, and wonder, and get not quite annoyed enough. The coffee kept flowing. It took a few tries but _her_ name lost its sting.

Armando said he was searching. Why, he smirked, roam without somewhere to come back to? Phoenix wondered if he had anyone else to bother. He slowly decided, after enough grave-silent companionship, that no, Armando didn't.

Phoenix knew what Armando looked like under there, by imagining the real, bitter grin and his old case file photos, put together piecemeal. That was enough to know him, or for Phoenix to guess he did. Except for one humid July day, when Armando pulled the visor away to wipe his sweat-shining brow with a forearm and here was the truth, a glimpse while Phoenix was supposed to be pouring more coffee into their mugs. Armando didn't look like the mental collage at all: he was grim-drawn, showing his age. And there was the scar: an angry rope over the bridge of his nose.

Armando clicked the visor back on, and asked what. Low, darkly.

Phoenix's mouth worked useless, before he managed, nothing, Diego. It wasn't nothing -- he hadn't thought the knife wound was so _big_, reaching over Armando's cheekbones, how badly had it bled? -- but those words would never come out right.

In the quiet, Phoenix realised he hadn't used that first name before. One sticky fingerprint on a relic. He filled the mug, finally, and returned it and Armando didn't seem to care that their fingers brushed.

It wasn't civil. It wasn't _comfortable_, either, but at least that word was closer. It couldn't be normal, not bothering to flinch at sudden banging at his front door, but Phoenix did just that. _Her_ name turned ordinary, like legend, like favourite poetry. Armando stopped by the office once, entirely uninvited. Phoenix introduced him to Charley and that was when Armando's laugh sounded real for the first time.

Summer crawled on because no one could put it out of its misery. Radio announcers chattered happily about heat and its records. The bedroom wasn't so sun-battered in the afternoon and, of course, Phoenix wasn't the only one canny enough to figure that out. He raked stray hair off his forehead; he followed the scent of coffee, hot and familiar. Phoenix wondered if he should mind any of this and, as usual, had no answer.

The curtains glowed gold where they dammed afternoon heat back; the visor sat on the nightstand, dark, discarded. Armando sprawled, squinting at the ceiling like that made a difference.

Phoenix smirked one-sided. Comfortable, he asked?

He said he was pretty sure his birthday came already, this month. Armando laughed once, like an old hound's huff. Maybe he was getting old, if he was forgetting things.

Sitting, thanking his luck that he'd bothered to make the bed that day, Phoenix said nothing. Armando did look old: in his bone-white halo of hair, in the wry smile, in the crow's feet he'd gotten learning things the hard way. But he looked younger for relaxing, for glancing a mild question to where Phoenix more or less was. Did time matter, when one had already died?

He grabbed for Phoenix's side then: Armando didn't move gingerly, only _blind_ men did that. Phoenix was too startled to properly fight, and his balance failed, and he spluttered that it was too hot to breathe, let alone _touch_ anybody.

Armando's pull stopped. No relenting -- men never backed down -- just a moment to think.

Phoenix, he muttered in a voice rough as sleep, do things fully or not at all. One of his rules.

There was no reason to fight, so Phoenix was pulled onto his back and left there, a hand spread over his abs like a claim. Not so bad. The heat didn't compare to someone hot-blooded, to the tense newness in the air.

Another real laugh, low like a grand old bell. Armando told Phoenix that he was alright, kid.

_Alright_. What a civil word. And what a bizarre sort of comfortable it was, settling against Armando and finding him all lean ribs. The ceiling was a boring sight. It didn't matter. Phoenix matched an arm to Armando's, draped over top, fingers threading together. He vaguely wanted to touch that scar, maybe just to see what it felt like and he decided not now, but when Armando came again and held no surprises. Maybe Armando didn't need somewhere to come back to -- just a some_one_. And that was a dangerous thought for later.

Time didn't matter, not really. The day turned slowly more golden.


End file.
